Hello, I've had my sheevaplug (purchased from Global Scale) since just after Christmas and its been running extremely well for what I've been running on it (two instances of rtorrent, irssi, twonkymedia, an ircbot, and some other stuff). I run ubuntu 9.04 and have /home /var and /lib on a 1TB WD external drive. It has it's own power supply. I have a usb hub plugged into the sheevaplug's usb port. The usb hub has its own power source and the external drive was plugged into the hub.

Last night I logged on to it via ssh, and everything was well. When I got home from school today, I wanted to check how things were going and attempted to ssh into it. No response. So I go upstairs to my router and check on it. No Blue light. I thought it was odd so I unplugged the sheevaplug from the wall, let it sit a minute, and plugged it in again without anything plugged into the USB port and the ethernet cable removed from the sheevaplug. Once again, the green power light was on but the blue light was not. Both ethernet lights were glowing, something I dont remember happening without the presence of the ethernet cable. The processor reset button also doesnt make the ethernet lights flash or go out as I remember them doing before this issue.

There are no foul smells emitting from the sheevaplug and a different usb powered hub lights up, leading me to believe that the psu is not damaged. I dont want to open the sheevaplug and break the seal if there is a remote chance of Global Scale RMA'ing or sending me a new one. When or if they deny it, I will be willing to open it.

Has anyone had similar issues with their plugs before?

Edit: Well, I've opened it and the psu is perfectly fine. I also cant access the plug via the serial console.

I would bet it's another case of bad capacitors in the power supply. I noticed my sheevaplug was dead yesterday. The green light was blinking about once a second, and the lights on the ethernet jack, yellow and green, were also blinking in sync. I took it apart, opened the power supply, and found a "bulged top" capacitor. 1000uF @ 10V.

I removed the cap and cleaned up some of the leaked fluid from it with a swab and alcohol. An old motherboard on the scrap heap had a 1000uF @ 6.3V that was the same physical size, so I stuffed it in and it came right up again.I did measure the voltage across it and it was a 5V supply, so the 6.3V replacement was OK.

See "Capacitor Plague" on wikipedia.

I think I saw a post somewhere about a $10 replacement supply for out-of-warranty units, but I usually fix stuff myself.

Update: The $10 replacement may be rumor. It's here on plugcomputer.org "Topic: Replacement Sheevaplug power supply: What's the best thing to do?"

I would bet it's another case of bad capacitors in the power supply. I noticed my sheevaplug was dead yesterday. The green light was blinking about once a second, and the lights on the ethernet jack, yellow and green, were also blinking in sync. I took it apart, opened the power supply, and found a "bulged top" capacitor. 1000uF @ 10V.

I removed the cap and cleaned up some of the leaked fluid from it with a swab and alcohol. An old motherboard on the scrap heap had a 1000uF @ 6.3V that was the same physical size, so I stuffed it in and it came right up again.I did measure the voltage across it and it was a 5V supply, so the 6.3V replacement was OK.

See "Capacitor Plague" on wikipedia.

I think I saw a post somewhere about a $10 replacement supply for out-of-warranty units, but I usually fix stuff myself.

Update: The $10 replacement may be rumor. It's here on plugcomputer.org "Topic: Replacement Sheevaplug power supply: What's the best thing to do?"

Thank you immensely for posting. I will open my plug later tonight and see if I could diagnose it.

Edit: I've just taken a look inside, and the psu is fine. Something on the PCB is messed up. I noticed that between the metal plate on the back of the PCB (which I assume to be the heatsink) that there is a chip without a pad. Most of the chips have a layer of some sort of material between them and the metal plate, but one of them doesnt. I think I'll cut off the plate tomorrow and see if there has been any damage to the chip.

Edit2: well, it turns out that missing piece is normal. I contacted some one else and they said that they were missing the same piece of material on the same chip. I have no clue whats wrong :/The ethernet port's lights are always on. Even if I hit the processor reset, the LEDs dont flash or turn off like I think I recall them doing before all this. The green power light comes up, and no blue light. I also cannot access the serial console and running

My pc doesn't even recognize that anything has been pluged into the usb port, but it dose when i plug in my iPod Nano, I bought a new charger thinking that was the problem so the cable is fine. Anyone got any ideas? Pls I need help, Thank you.

My pc doesn't even recognize that anything has been pluged into the usb port, but it dose when i plug in my iPod Nano, I bought a new charger thinking that was the problem so the cable is fine. Anyone got any ideas? Pls I need help, Thank you.

Same here mate. So it looks like no one has any knowledge of our issues. Do you have the same LED issue as I do? Look at the first post.

I have had mixed results with SheevaPlug. I bought two plugs. The first plug I bought last August from Globalscale and right from the start it would reboot spontaneously after about 15 to 90 minutes, never staying up for more than a couple of hours. That plug was replaced (GS got New IT to supply the new one). The second plug (not the replacement, which is sitting in a drawer as a spare) I bought at the end of last year from New IT and it started playing up yesterday. It runs debian from an external USB disk and has been stable for about 3 months running exim, dovecot, nfsd and samba. However since yesterday it has rebooted 8 times leaving no trace of any problem in any of the logs (/var/log/{syslog,messages,kern}). The plug sits behind an APC SmartUPS so dirty power should not be an issue.

I have the exact same thing. No blue light comes on, green power light is on steady, both ethernet lights are on steady, reset switch does nothing, cannot access serial. Interesting things I found, the battery inside was corroded and bulged, oviously needs a new battary, can this cause issues if I don't run with one of these? I took it out for the moment, no different. Also I measured the voltage of the power supply, was 3v coming out, I think I may have bad power supply, since shouldn't it be 5v? comments anyone? PS looks good, no bad smells, looks like there may be a buldged cap just a little, hard to tell. But I suspect with the voltages I measured, that it is bad. Will have to get something to test it out.

I have the exact same thing. No blue light comes on, green power light is on steady, both ethernet lights are on steady, reset switch does nothing, cannot access serial. Interesting things I found, the battery inside was corroded and bulged, oviously needs a new battary, can this cause issues if I don't run with one of these? I took it out for the moment, no different. Also I measured the voltage of the power supply, was 3v coming out, I think I may have bad power supply, since shouldn't it be 5v? comments anyone? PS looks good, no bad smells, looks like there may be a buldged cap just a little, hard to tell. But I suspect with the voltages I measured, that it is bad. Will have to get something to test it out.

If its a bulging capacitor, you can bet money its bad.

Capacitors shown are from left to right: 1) 400V, 6.8uF, 2) 400V 22uF, 3) 1000uF, 10V.... The one of the right is the most critical and exposed to the most heat and is likely to go first.